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Nonepic leShay

A friend of mine asked for help to make the leShay (a race from the Epic Level Handbook) a playable race. This is what I have done.
Since I liked the result, I'm sharing it.

Spoiler

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LESHAY RACIAL TRAITS

+2 Dexterity, –2 Constitution: LeShay are graceful but frail.

Medium: As Medium creatures, leShay have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

LeShay base land speed is 30 feet.

Fey (Extraplanar): As fey, leShay are immune to effects that specifically target humanoids, such as the charm person spell. As natives of the Outer Plane of Faerie, leShay have the extraplanar subtype while they are on the Material Plane (or any other plane besides the leShay’s home plane). This makes them vulnerable to certain effects that might force them back to their home plane.

Low-light Vision: A leShay can see twice as far as a human in starlight, moonlight, torchlight, and similar conditions of poor illumination. He retains the ability to distinguish color and detail under these conditions.

Spell-like Abilities: A leShay with Intelligence or Charisma of 8 or higher gains spell-like abilities, using his Hit Dice as his caster level. The table below lists the abilities available. These abilities are cumulative; a leShay with 3 HD can use the abilities on the 1-2 HD row on the table as well as those on the 3-4 HD row.
{table=head]HD|Abilities
1-2|Cure light wounds 3/day
3-4|Knock 3/day
5-6|Blur 3/day, detect thoughts 1/day
7-8|Invisibility 3/day
9-10|Alter self 1/day
11-12|Water breathing 3/day
13-14|Speak with plants 3/day
15-16|Teleport 3/day
17-18|Greater dispel magic 1/day
19-20|Freedom 1/day[/table]

LeShay Weapons (Su): Each leShay carries two personal masterwork melee weapons that she manifests from his own life essence. The weapons must be chosen at 1st level and can't be changed ever after. They have to be the same kind of weapon (typically two longswords). When not in combat, the weapons simply do not exist, but leShay can “draw” their weapons from nowhere as a free action once per round. LeShay weapons can be enchanted by spellcasters with Craft Magic Arms and Armor, just like any masterwork weapon; the leShay must be present for all the time required for the creation. The moment a leShay relinquishes his grip on a leShay weapon or if it is broken, it dissipates, but the leShay can redraw it with a free action.

Superior Two-Weapon Fighting (Ex): When a leShay fights with a leShay weapon in each hand, he gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls, because these weapons are extensions of his own body.

Immortality (Ex): LeShay never die from age, disease, or toxins; they perish only if killed. They are immune to diseases and poisons. Moreover, leShay don't take ability score penalties for aging and cannot be magically aged. Bonuses still accrue. (Most leShay reached venerable age centuries ago and so they have a +3 bonus to all mental abilities.)

Gaze (Su): A leShay can crush an opponent’s will just by looking onto his or her eyes. This is similar to a gaze attack, except that the leShay must use a standard action, and those merely looking at him are not affected. Anyone the leShay targets must succeed on a Will save or fall instantly under the leShay’s influence as though by a charm person spell. Caster level is the same as the leShay's HD and the save DC is 10 + 1/2 leShay’s HD + his Charisma modifier. The ability has a range of 30 feet. LeShay are immune to their own gaze.

Weapon Proficiency: LeShay receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats. LeShay esteem the arts of swordplay and archery, so all leShay are familiar with these weapons.

+2 racial bonus on Listen, Search, and Spot checks. A leShay who merely passes within 5 feet of a secret or concealed door is entitled to a Search check to notice it as if she were actively looking for it. A leShay’s senses are so keen that she practically has a sixth sense about hidden portals.

Polyglot: LeShay characters treat Speak Languages as a class skill for all their classes.

Automatic Languages: Common and Elven. Bonus Languages: Any (except for secret languages, such as Druidic). LeShay have great facility at languages.

Favored Class: Duskblade. A multiclass leShay’s duskblade class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing. LeShay combine great magical knowledge with unmatched fighting mastery.

+2 Level Adjustment.

(Note: LeShay are clearly stronger than drows, despite having the same level adjustment. But if you compare them to a half-fey elf or a phrenic elf, they are more or less equally powerful. (And no one plays drows anyway.)
If you think it is overpowered, you can raise the leShay's level adjustment to +3.)

Re: Nonepic leShay

Hmmmm, I don't know if it's strong enough for a LA +2, but with all those SLA, I don't see it going any lower.

But on the race proper, I don't think +2 Dexterity, –2 Constitution is quite right. Looking at "the real deal", its Constitution is its third highest score. I think +2 Dex, -2 Str or a clean +2 Dex would be more like it.

Originally Posted by cerin616

I just like to think that Smaug's "cry of pain" was "OH GOD, MY PRETTY! YOU HIT MY RIGHT IN THE PRETTY."

Re: Nonepic leShay

Hmmm... the SLAs are pretty good. The SR is pretty good. Immortality is very good (effectively a +3 to all mental stats). Charm person gaze attack is also extremely powerful. Fey type is good, but (extraplaner) is less so.

You might want to either give it a few racial HD, or bump the LA up a point or so-- Immortality and the gaze attack are worth a lot all by themselves, and the rest is all quite good.

Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant

Grod's Law: You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use

Re: Nonepic leShay

Thank you for your opinions.

Larkas says it's not strong enough, Grod that it's too strong.

Originally Posted by Larkas

But on the race proper, I don't think +2 Dexterity, –2 Constitution is quite right. Looking at "the real deal", its Constitution is its third highest score. I think +2 Dex, -2 Str or a clean +2 Dex would be more like it.

You are right, but -2 Str doesn't seem right either. They are a race that focuses a lot in fighting, I don't think they should have a -2 Str penalty.
I gave them -2 Con because they are after all a more powerful variant of elves. +2 Dex and no penalty would be fine as well, but before that I need to understand if the race is too powerful or not powerful enough.

Originally Posted by Grod_The_Giant

Hmmm... the SLAs are pretty good. The SR is pretty good. Immortality is very good (effectively a +3 to all mental stats). Charm person gaze attack is also extremely powerful. Fey type is good, but (extraplaner) is less so.

You might want to either give it a few racial HD, or bump the LA up a point or so-- Immortality and the gaze attack are worth a lot all by themselves, and the rest is all quite good.

Well, an elf with the phrenic template would have +2 Dex, -2 Con, +2 Int, +2 Wis and +4 Car, which is very similar, and more offensive psi-like abilities.
While a half-fey elf would have worse ability scores, but wings, good spell-like abilities, and DR 5/silver.

You're right, the gaze attack is strong. It's a charm person at will whose DC scales with levels. But half-feys have charm person at will as well, and I'm afraid that if I raise the LA too much, the race will be not worth it (it works only on humanoids, and a simple protection from evil makes it useless.) LA is so tricky.

Re: Nonepic leShay

I think I might have looked at it too quickly and it reminded of the wrong race, namely, the drow. Damn SR!

If you're worried about Gaze being too strong, why not make it work like a bard's fascinate? The effects are way less powerful, but you already have all the other SLAs. Also, it has the bonus of working on any creature, not just humanoids

A parting thought, some SLAs have too much synergy to be usable 3/day. I'm looking at Blur, Invisibility, Alter Self and Teleport, even though the third is 1/day. They're very fitting, though.

Originally Posted by cerin616

I just like to think that Smaug's "cry of pain" was "OH GOD, MY PRETTY! YOU HIT MY RIGHT IN THE PRETTY."